An analyst working at the US State Department has been accused of leaking top
secret information about North Korea to a reporter.

Steven Kim, who worked as an employee of a contractor, was named in a federal indictment unsealed Friday. He was charged with illegally disclosing national defence information, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, and with making false statements to the FBI, which has a maximum five-year sentence.

The Justice Department said in June 2009 Kim knowingly passed information about US intelligence concerning a foreign country to a national news organisation and in September of that year falsely denied to the FBI having had recent contacts with a reporter from that news organisation.

The material was classified top secret/sensitive compartmented information because it concerned the military capability of the foreign country and related to US intelligence sources and methods.

“The wilful disclosure of classified information to those not entitled to it is a serious crime,” said Assistant Attorney General David Kris in a written statement. “Today’s indictment should serve as a warning to anyone who is entrusted with sensitive national security information and would consider compromising it.”

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Kim arrived at court accompanied by his lawyers. He appeared before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in an hour-long closed-door hearing before pleading not guilty.

His lawyer argued that the news report that led to the charges “contains completely unremarkable observations about what a country would do if it was sanctioned for its poor behaviour. These kinds of observations were well known to anyone paying attention to public sources and ought not be the basis for making someone a federal felon.”

Meanwhile a former US Army analyst from Oklahoma was arrested in Minneapolis while trying to board a flight to China allegedly with electronic files containing a restricted Army field manual.

Federal prosecutors said Liangtian Yang, 26, also known as Alfred Yang, of Lawton, Oklahoma, allegedly was carrying multiple data storage devices when he was arrested Thursday at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Yang was charged Thursday in Oklahoma City with one count of theft of government property, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison.